


a family that makes you bruise

by WingedQuill



Series: In Sheep's Clothing [3]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Ableism, Angst, But the comfort doesn't work :(, Disability, Escape, Evil Jaskier, Family, Family Issues, Human Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Kaer Morhen, M/M, Past Abuse, Sorry Geralt, Starvation, Survival, accidental injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:46:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25949821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingedQuill/pseuds/WingedQuill
Summary: Vesemir’s face grows even more concerned as he steps closer to Geralt. His fingers are drawing closer together, not quite touching, but ready to cast Axii if Geralt bolts.“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says, keeping his voice soft,soft, soft,like Geralt always does—did—when coaxing terrified humans to come with him to escape a monster. “I know they say a lot of things about us witchers, but I swear—”“Stop,” Geralt whispers. “Please stop talking."(Or: Geralt escapes from Jaskier the night before their second wedding. His homecoming isn't exactly joyous.)
Relationships: Mentioned Aiden/Lambert - Relationship, Past Geralt/Jaskier - Relationship
Series: In Sheep's Clothing [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1818910
Comments: 18
Kudos: 174





	a family that makes you bruise

**Author's Note:**

> And here we are! The next installment of In Sheep's Clothing. Unlike some of the other series I've written, this one really does need to be read in order/with context, so go read story one, by me, and story two by my fabulous co-author screwthepurplegiraffe.
> 
> Warnings for this fic (spoilers!): Starvation, past abuse, internalized ableism due to an injury resulting from said abuse, accidental harm of a family member. I think that's everything but let me know if you need anything tagged!

The necklace isn’t coming off.

It’s not locked. Not bespelled. Not moulded to his skin, removable only by Jaskier. He should be able to tug it off and cast it to the ground, just like he’s casting aside his life at their—at  _ Jaskier’s— _ home. But his frostbitten fingers can’t quite manage the motions necessary to undo the clasp.

He gives up, after a few clumsy fumbles at the clasp, brings his arms back down to clutch at the washbasin. Stares into the mirror, watching the thin band of silver heave with every breath. Forces those breaths slower. Deeper. He can get the necklace off when he gets back to Kaer Morhen. Just needs to walk around with the sign of Jaskier’s ownership till then.

It’s fine.

He’ll be fine.

His gaze drops to the wedding tunic clinging to his torso. It’s incredibly conspicuous, with the fine shining embroidery and pure white cloth. He’ll look exactly as he is—the runaway groom of a noble, with a hefty prize for his return. But he can’t risk sneaking into his and Jaskier’s room for a change of clothes, not when Jaskier could be returning from his meeting any moment. Auxilio can’t catch him trying to run, not when his brothers are on the line.

So no stopping in any towns between here and Kaer Morhen. He’ll need to survive in the woods with his ruined hands and shattered senses.

_ Deep breaths. Slow breaths. You’ve done harder things before. _

He steps away from the mirror and runs for the stables.

***

Halfway through his fumbling attempt of cinching all the straps on Roach’s tack, a stablehand—Joshua, he’s been with them for five years now, ever since he was a young man who didn’t know a horse’s ass from its head—saunters into the room, a bucket of feed in his hand. Geralt freezes, his hands shaking on Roach’s bridle, a million flimsy lies gathering on his tongue.

Joshua’s eyes widen as he takes in Geralt, all dressed up in his wedding garb, clearly making a run for it. And then he’s hurrying to Geralt’s side, sure fingers tightening the strap around Roach’s belly.

“It’s not right,” he says as he works. “What he did to you.”

There’s a stone in Geralt’s throat, burning as hot as an ember. He can’t speak around it, so he just nods, making sure Roach’s saddlebags are filled with grain.

“None of us knew,” Joshua says, tying the last knot. “I want you to know that. None of the servants knew what his plans were. None of us condoned it.” 

He claps a hand on Geralt’s shoulder, and his eyes are shining with tears. 

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “But I’m glad you’re running.”

Geralt clears his throat.

“So am I,” he says.

Joshua tugs the dagger from his belt and hands it to Geralt. His fingers hurt, when they wrap around the handle, but he can hold it. It’s a solid weight in his hand, steady and safe.

“Thank you,” he says.

“It’s the least I could do,” Joshua says, stepping away from Roach as Geralt swings onto her back. “Good luck.”

Geralt nods, and nudges Roach into motion.

***

He keeps off the main roads. Sticks to the woods when they’re clear enough for Roach to move with relative ease. Sometimes, he swears he can hear hoofbeats in the distance—lots of hoofbeats.

A raiding party?

An army?

Auxilio, furious that their new convert had escaped them?

Whenever his ruined hearing can pick them up, he clambors off Roach and finds himself a place among the trees, hunkered down in the leaves like a frightened rabbit. He clutches the dagger until his hand goes numb and vows that Auxilio will not take him back to Jaskier. That he’ll die before he lets that happen.

He can almost pretend that he’s lying in wait for a monster.

***

The hunger sets in fast.

He doesn’t have much weight to lose.

It’s a month’s long ride to Kaer Morhen and he can’t stop in towns, can’t hunt, doesn’t have any provisions packed. He gathers what berries and mushrooms he can. They’re enough to quiet the roar in his stomach, shape it into a pathetic whimper.

At night, he curls up in the dark, listens to Roach’s soft huffing breath, and weighs the odds of his survival.

_ Hands can’t move delicately enough to build a fire. _

_ Or a shelter. _

_ Not enough food. _

_ Can’t purify water. _

He remembers the scenarios they were given in Kaer Morhen’s survival training, the impossible odds of being stranded on a deserted island, lost in the woods, trapped in a cavern.

There was never anything this hopeless. 

If it was this hopeless, the thinking went, you should just pray for rescue. Or a quick death.

***

He hasn’t found a single berry bush in three days.

The sleeves of his tunic hang loose around his wrists as he half-sits, half-lies across Roach’s back. At least she can eat grass. At least she’ll be alright.

Perhaps he’ll die on her back. Perhaps she’ll carry his corpse to Kaer Morhen. Let his brown eyes serve as a warning.

He turns his head to the side, watching the ground pass by. And then a flash of red.

Raspberries.

A lot of them.

Not a corpse yet.

***

And still not.

***

And still not.

***

Weeks pass, he follows the sky North, and he doesn’t die and doesn’t die and doesn’t die.

***

The crumbling towers of Kaer Morhen rise in the distance like a lighthouse in the middle of a stormy sea, and Geralt sags against Roach’s neck with a shuddering sigh, stroking his hands lightly over her mane. 

“We’re home, girl,” he tells her. “We’re home.”

He leaves her grazing as he stumbles to the main gate, feeling like he might collapse at any moment. Now that he’s surrounded by the familiar smells of Kaer Morhen’s flower fields, the familiar sound of wind through the tall pine trees—as muffled and dull and flat as it all is—his body is making its weakness known. The hunger and exhaustion tug at his limbs like iron weights, bidding him to collapse on the ground and sleep the rest of the week away.

He can only imagine what Vesemir will say when he sees him like this—skinny and weak and dressed in a filthy marriage tunic. Human.  _ Broken.  _ He braces himself for every possible reaction as he shoves open the door. Pity. Horror. Disgust, that his son has fallen so far. Anger, that he let himself be tricked into falling.

What he doesn’t expect is this:

Vesemir races down the stairs, face pinched into a look of concentration, hand already on the hilt of his sword. Standard, for unannounced arrivals. But when he sees Geralt, the determination to protect his home melts away, replaced by a flicker of undisguised worry.

“Good gods, lad.”

He takes his hand off his sword and approaches Geralt as though he’s a skittish animal, hands held out in front of him.

“Are you lost?” he asks, and Geralt’s stomach drops out of his body.

“Were you attacked?” There isn’t a hint of recognition in his eyes. Geralt takes a step backward. The world is wobbling around him, shimmering and uncertain and  _ not right.  _ Vesemir doesn’t recognize him. His father  _ doesn’t recognize him. _

“I—” he tries, but the words are stuck in his throat. “I—”

Vesemir’s face grows even more concerned as he steps closer to Geralt. His fingers are drawing closer together, not quite touching, but ready to cast Axii if Geralt bolts.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says, keeping his voice  _ soft, soft, soft,  _ like Geralt always does—did—when coaxing terrified humans to come with him to escape a monster. “I know they say a lot of things about us witchers, but I swear—”

“Stop,” Geralt whispers. “Please stop talking.”

Because gods, he can’t listen to Vesemir talk about what witchers are and aren’t like, he can’t listen to his misplaced comfort, he can’t, he can’t, he  _ can’t. _

Vesemir’s mouth clicks shut and he nods, gesturing towards the sitting room with an encouraging nod. Geralt wants to scream, but he follows dutifully, his whole body tense as a bowstring. 

He sinks down onto the couch and swallows rapidly, staring down at his hands as he tries to gather his words together, to explain what had happened to him, to warn Vesemir what’s coming for all of them. But the room feels just as small and suffocating as Jaskier’s parlor, and he can’t get enough air into his lungs to speak.

“Breathe,” Vesemir says sternly. He settles into the armchair across from Geralt, but Geralt doesn’t raise his head to look at him. “Match my breaths, can you do that lad?”

Geralt closes his eyes. Pretends that he’s back in training, panicking over the coming trials. Vesemir next to him, calm and steady and  _ knowing who he fucking was— _ stop. Breathe.

He follows the steady rush of Vesemir’s breath, letting his lungs fill up all the way, holding the air like something precious, then emptying himself back out. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. 

After dozens of breaths, he inhales, and fills his chest up with words instead of air.

“Vesemir,” he says, and watches as Vesemir’s feet jolt in surprise. He still can’t bring himself to look at his face. “Vesemir, it’s me.” 

There’s a moment where everything seems to hang still, the world suspended as he waits for Vesemir’s answer. And then there are fingers under his chin as Vesemir tilts his head up, his eyes wide as they search Geralt’s face.

Geralt can see the moment that Vesemir realizes that it’s him. All the color seems to flee from his face, and his fingers clench against Geralt’s jaw.

_ “Geralt,”  _ he breathes. 

Geralt closes his eyes. He can’t stand the broken, horrified look on Vesemir’s face, can’t watch him in the moment that the expression inevitably turns into disappointment.

“How—what—?” Vesemir sputters. It is rare that he is speechless, rarer still that his speechlessness is due to horror. “What  _ happened?” _

Geralt swallows. He doesn’t want to confess just how  _ stupid  _ he was, trusting that a human—a fucking  _ noble _ —could possibly love him. That he walked by Jaskier’s side for years, never knowing what he was planning on doing to him. 

And he wouldn’t. But—

Eskel, Lambert, Vesemir, freezing with frost and burning with silver, suffering and weakening until they become desperate enough to drink down Auxilio’s potion.

—he can’t risk his family.

“Jaskier,” he whispers. “It was Jaskier.”

Vesemir’s breath stutters against Geralt’s face.

“Jaskier did this to you?” he chokes. He sounds like the world has been flipped out from under him, like he’s desperately trying to make sense of it all. 

Geralt nods.

“He’s part of this—this group, they want to get rid of witchers. ‘Heal us.’ I—they don’t think we have emotions, they think we’re—we’re trapped, they think they’re  _ freeing us— _ and I was their fucking test subject.”

The reality bears down on him harder and harder the more he talks about it. His husband didn’t think he had emotions. His husband tore away his life, everything that he’d spent a century building, because he was so convinced that he knew what was best for him. His husband dressed him up like a doll and paraded him around his house like a prized mare, ignoring his listlessness, his pain, the deadness behind his eyes.

Vesemir makes a low, wounded sound, and yanks Geralt into a hug. But Geralt doesn’t get to savor the feeling for more than a second before Vesemir is yelping, jerking back away from him, his hand clutching at his wrist.

_ The necklace. _

“I’m sorry,” he says, bringing a hand up to his neck. “I’m sorry, it’s—it’s silver, I—”

“Is it hurting you?” Vesemir asks, putting aside his own pain in an instant. 

“No,” Geralt says. It feels like a confession. “But I can’t—I can’t undo the clasp, my fingers are...they wanted to get me weak so that their potions would work, and they left me out in the cold, and—”

Vesemir takes Geralt’s hand in his, gently, so gently, like he’s looking over a baby bird. Like Geralt is a child again, blubbering on the side of the road. Weak. Pathetic. He runs his fingers over the white patches that cover his skin, taking in the deadened tissue.

“How much mobility do you have?” he asks, gentle, gentle,  _ gentle,  _ and Geralt wants to scream.

“Not much,” he says, shoving aside the frustration in favor of a cold, simple recitation of the facts.  _ How badly are you hurt?  _ A simple question. A question that he’s answered hundreds of times from Vesemir alone. “I can hold things, but I can’t grip too tightly. And small motions aren’t—” he gestures to the necklace. “—aren’t possible.”

Vesemir swallows. Takes a deep, shuddering breath.

“Let me find a pair of gloves,” he says. “So I can get that off of you. And we’ll go from there.”

***

He thinks it should feel like freedom, when Vesemir undoes the clasp of the choker. Like one last chain falling away.

But hours later, sitting alone on the edge of his bed, staring down at the cold metal in his cold hands, he can’t feel anything but empty. 

He’s accomplished what he needed to do. He made it back to Kaer Morhen. He warned Vesemir, who’s sending birds to every school that’s still even semi-functional. Soon, every witcher on the Continent will know of this danger, will be able to band together and fight it. He has food in his belly, a warm fire crackling in front of him, and he can hear Vesemir restlessly pacing the halls. He’s safe. He’s alive and safe and protected.

But by all the gods in the sky, what is he supposed to do now?

***

Time at Kaer Morhen is a respite, yes. But it’s also a time of hard work, repairing the crumbling walls, tending to the vegetable patches, hunting, foraging, sparring. 

Jaskier had thrown himself into that work, all the years he’d come to Geralt’s home. He’d proclaimed how fulfilling it was, to use his muscles, to work up a sweat repairing a wall and see the result towering proudly above him.

He’d probably been cursing them in his head the whole time, these brutish witchers forcing him to do peasant’s work.

But Geralt’s pride in his home, in maintaining it, had  _ always  _ been genuine.

And now, all he can do is sit by the fire and try to coax some warmth into his useless hands. All he can do is eat the food that Vesemir is constantly pushing at him, his brows pinched in a way that Geralt is quickly growing to despise. He asks Vesemir, time and time again, if there’s anything he can do to help. And each time, he’s simply told “you can help by resting. Healing. Getting better.”

But there’s no healing from his humanity. There’s no getting better from his ruined hands.

There’s only this. An eternity of resting. 

***

Sometimes, he drifts off on the couch, and when he wakes up, he thinks he’s back in Jaskier’s house.

It doesn’t feel much different, most days. The only difference is that Vesemir can see how much he’s hurting. He keeps trying to get Geralt to talk to him. And it’s tempting sometimes, that offer. To open his mouth and let his grief and fear and anger spill out of him like he’s an overflowing cup.

But Vesemir already pities him. Already holds him like he’s something fragile.

The thing is, he’s not. He’s not a fragile bit of porcelain, he’s a million tiny shards dashed across the floor, shattered beyond any kind of repair. And he doesn’t know how Vesemir will treat him, if he learns that.

“What is there to talk about?” he says instead. “Can’t fix anything.”

Vesemir sighs and clucks and hugs him, but he doesn’t press. He never presses anything out of Geralt, not anymore.

***

Lambert and Eskel make it back to Kaer Morhen three weeks after Geralt, following Vesemir’s frantic letter. Even with his dulled hearing, Geralt can hear them halfway across the keep, skidding into the foyer in a cavalcade of stomping boots, Lambert cursing up a storm. He puts down the book he’s been reading—a bestiary of monsters he will never fight again—and slips out of the library, heading for the foyer.

He makes it to the top of the staircase before the muffled hum of voices sharpens into words.

“Don’t overwhelm him,” Vesemir is saying. “And don’t ask him too many questions. He’s still processing what happened, I think.”

Geralt bites down on his tongue. So that’s what Vesemir thinks of him. A man who needs to be shielded from his own life.

He thinks he should feel angrier at that. But the idea of fighting with his family is exhausting. The idea of resenting Vesemir, when he spent a month starving in the woods to save him, is even more so. So he shoves down the wave of  _ hurt,  _ locks it away with the frustration and loss and ever-present guilt at his own stupidity, and comes down the stairs.

“Hey,” he says, and the gazes of everyone in the room snap towards him. Eskel’s eyes go wide, and he mouths Geralt’s name like he’s frantically trying to connect it with the person in front of him. 

Lambert’s hands ball into fists.

“I’m going to kill him,” he snarls. “I’m going to—fucking piece of  _ shit,  _ I fucking—I congratulated him at your wedding, I—all these years and I never—I’m going to Lettenhove. Right now.” 

“Lambert,” Vesemir says warningly, but Lambert shrugs off his hand when he tries to put it on his shoulder. He turns on his heel, storming towards the door.

“I’ll come back when I have his head on a pike,” he snarls, and Geralt’s stomach turns over at the thought of that. Because even after everything Jaskier had done to him, in the silver cage and in all the months since—

_ A hand at his waist, twirling him over the damp sand, their feet kicking up splashes of sea water, Jaskier shrieking with laughter at the cold.  _

_ Fingers in his hair, carefully combing it out, “look how beautiful it shines under the moonlight, oh dear heart, you really are something precious.” _

_ A private love song around a campfire, something that would never be played for an audience, something just for them. _

—he still fucking  _ loves  _ the bastard. And he hates it, and he wishes he could rip it out of him and tear it to shreds, as easily as Jaskier had ripped out his mutations. But he can’t. He just.  _ Can’t.  _ And the thought of his eyes, glassy and flat, the thought of his lips, cold and blue with death—

“Please don’t,” he says. Lambert freezes by the door, his shoulders heaving. “I don’t want—I don’t want you to kill him.”

“Why the fuck not?” Lambert says. His voice is shaking. “Fuck, Geralt, look what he did to you.”

“You think I don’t see it in the mirror every single day?” Lambert flinches. “I  _ know  _ what he did. I know what I am now. I still don’t want you to kill him for it.”

“We’re supposed to kill monsters,” Lambert protests.

“And sometimes we’re supposed to save them.”

“It’s his call, Lamb,” Eskel says, slipping to Geralt’s side. “You weren’t the one who got hurt.”

Lambert’s shoulders slump, the fight draining from him with a long sigh.

“I know,” he says. “I know.”

He scrubs a hand over his eyes and stumbles back over to Geralt and Eskel.

“This is so fucked up,” he says. “This is so—gods, let me just—”

He flings his arms around Geralt, tugging him in close against him. Eskel only waits a heartbeat before joining in, enveloping them both in his gigantic arms. Geralt has always loved his brothers’ hugs, warm and solid and strong as they are.

Now, he can feel his ribs creak under the pressure, the air squeezed out of his weak human lungs.

He doesn’t ask them to stop, doesn’t squirm in their grip, doesn’t nudge them to go lighter. He just closes his eyes and focuses on the warmth, the belonging. It’s the first time since the cage that someone is treating him like a person, instead of a delicate bit of glass. He’s not losing this.

***

They keep not treating him like glass.

He doesn’t know if they’re pretending that everything is normal for his sake or for their own, but he’s grateful for it, at least at first. The hugs, elbow nudges, playful wrestling over the last bit of wine in the bottle, hip checks—they sting, sure, but the bruises are worth feeling like someone’s brother, someone’s  _ family.  _

And then the elbows start nudging into already-bruised skin, the hugs start straining ribs that are already struggling, the playful wrestling starts to feel more like he’s fighting for his life, twisting, injured and hurting, beneath the bulk of a ghoul.

He gets very good at hiding bruises.

***

Vesemir still frets over him. He can feel his worried stare whenever Eskel and Lambert get too rough in his presence. He feels like a child again, a pre-trial boy, Vesemir carefully watching over him to make sure the teenagers, the  _ real  _ witchers, didn’t hurt him.

So he doesn’t act hurt. He laughs as they wrestle, smiles as he throws his legs over Lambert’s, ignoring the way the quick motion makes his muscles scream. He leans into the hugs, forcing his breaths even and calm when they want to race like those of a trapped animal. He stops taking naps in the middle of the day, even when fatigue is dragging at every limb.

He’s fine.

He can keep up with them.

He has to keep up with them.

***

One night, about two weeks after their arrival in Kaer Morhen, Eskel and Lambert declare a drinking night and drag Geralt down into the dining room to assist them with several large bottles of wine. Geralt sits back and swishes the wine around his glass, sipping slowly. His alcohol tolerance is yet another thing changed by Auxilio’s potion, he learned that in Jaskier’s house after a truly awful night.

His brothers don’t mention it. Just like they don’t mention that Geralt can’t join them in sparring anymore, can’t string a bow to hunt, can’t and can’t and can’t. They just pour more wine for themselves as Eskel tries to tease details of Lambert’s new traveling companion out of him. Apparently his gear reeked of another man.

“Is he an elf?” Eskel asks, swaying forward and bracing his elbows on his knees. “A dwarf?” 

“A  _ succubus?”  _ Geralt snorts, nudging Eskel with his foot. Eskel punches him in the arm—lightly, or at least so he thinks—and Geralt doesn’t wince.

“M’ not a monsterfucker,” Lambert laughs. “Not about to have any...I dunno, foursomes with dragons anytime soon.”

“Now  _ there’s  _ an idea,” Geralt says.

“Gross.” Lambert wrinkles his nose. “I don’t wanna hear about how you’re planning on getting over—”

“I’m gonna track you down,” Eskel says, cutting off Lambert with a raised voice. Geralt puts his glass back on the table. His hands are starting to feel weak. Weaker than normal, anyway. “When you have a contract. I wanna meet the person who can stand you for more than five minutes.”

“He’s very sneaky,” Lambert grins. “And very hard to sneak up on. So good luck.”

“Hmm, very sneaky. Sounds like an elf to me. My money’s on elf.”

Geralt taps his burning fingers against his legs and considers who would love prickly, angry-at-the-world Lambert.

“My money’s on human,” he says.

Lambert’s grin drops. Eskel stops chuckling. 

“No,” Lambert says tightly. He reaches out and snags Geralt’s glass off the table, pouring more wine for him. Geralt bites his cheek and doesn’t wonder if they noticed how badly his hands shook trying to pour it himself.

“If I was traveling with a human,” he says, slamming down the glass. “I sure as hell wouldn’t be now. There hasn’t been a single human that’s crossed our Path who hasn’t hurt us, one way or another.”

“You can’t say that,” Geralt says.  _ You should have known, you should have  _ **_seen,_ ** _ no one was ever that kind to you.  _ “You can’t.”

“That’s funny,” Lambert snorts, shoving the glass into Geralt’s numb hands. Geralt clings on as tight as he can, but it still tips, slowly, inevitably, and pours the wine directly into his lap.

Lambert surges to his feet.

“That’s real fucking funny coming from you, Geralt.”

He storms out of the room, and Eskel races after him, leaving Geralt to mop up the wine alone.

***

He slips down to the hot springs to clean the wine off of his legs, and lets out a relieved sigh as his aching muscles relax in the heat, as his cold-clenched fingers unfurl in the water. He’s rarely let himself indulge in this over the past few weeks, although it’s the best thing for his hands. The risk of Lambert or Eskel seeing the bruises is just too high.

But Lambert will take a while to calm down, so he leans his head back in the water, soaking his curls. Closes his eyes. With his ears in the water, his eyes shut, the warmth soothing away the pain in his hands, he almost can’t tell the difference between himself now and himself as he was a year ago. He can almost pretend he still has a future.

He doesn’t hear Eskel coming until the water splashes. He flails, pulling himself upright, snapping his eyes open, bringing up his arms instinctively to wrap around his ribs, where the bruising is heaviest.

Eskel is standing in the water, fully clothed, his eyes wide with horror.

“Geralt—” he breathes, wading forward. His hands hang uselessly in the air, reaching out like he wants to touch Geralt. But not connecting, like he thinks it might break him.

And the last two weeks of gritting his teeth through hugs and forcing down his winces through wrestling matches doesn’t matter now, does it? In the end, he’s still something fragile.

“Geralt, how did you get—did I—oh gods, was this Lambert and I?”

Geralt closes his eyes. Considers lying for a moment.

But what’s the fucking point? Where else could he get bruises this fresh?

“Yes,” he says.

“I thought I was holding back enough,” Eskel whispers. “I thought we were—I thought we were being careful.”

“You were holding back?” Geralt asks, and he can  _ feel  _ his face crumbling. They were treating him like a fragile thing this whole fucking time, and it still wasn’t enough to stop him from breaking.

“Yes, but—Geralt, it’s not like that, I never wanted—”

Geralt stumbles for the edge of the hot spring, ignoring Eskel’s choked sob as he reveals more bruises on his back and legs.

“Wait, wait, Geralt, don’t—”

But before Eskel can finish his sentence, Geralt pulls his robe around himself and flees the room.

***

Will Eskel ever hug him again? Will Lambert?

He lies on his back on his bed and stares up at the ceiling, trying to blink back the tears gathering in his— _ brown,  _ they’re fucking  _ brown,  _ how did he ever think he could belong here?—his eyes. 

They tried to compensate for their weak, useless, human brother, and they still hurt him. Of course they won’t want to hug him, or if they do, it’ll be fluttering, feather-light touches, useless for anchoring him among them. He wraps his arms around his torso and traces his fingers over the bruises.

The anger slams over him like a tidal wave.

Jaskier did this.

_ Jaskier did this. _

Jaskier held Geralt’s life and heart and everything he fucking  _ was _ in his hands, and chose to dash it on the floor. Jaskier made Geralt a ghost in his own home, Jaskier made it so that Geralt’s  _ family  _ can’t touch him without hurting him.

Jaskier has made him alone.

He snatches up a pillow, shoves it over his face, and  _ screams,  _ long and loud and cracked in half.

He doesn’t feel any better when he runs out of air, but he knows what he has to do.

***

He’s not a human. Not really. The long months in Jaskier’s home proved that much. He can’t live among them, can’t act like them, not without feeling like a washed out imitation of himself.

But he’s not a witcher. He can’t live among them either. Not without the constant, bruising reminder of everything he’s lost.

So he needs to find something else to be.

He needs to find somewhere else to live.

**Author's Note:**

> Next installment will be by screwthepurplegiraffe—make sure you're subscribed to this series and not just me as an author if you don't want to miss it!


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